Today we are going to discuss a topic that sounds a bit exciting and even somewhat dangerous: how to kill Bitcoin?
Have you ever thought about whether this thing, regarded as digital gold, could be completely destroyed? I find that Bitcoin enthusiasts and the general public have completely opposite views on this point. Bitcoin believers think that Bitcoin is immortal. No matter what happens, it can survive, while the general public sees Bitcoin as just a digital product that will eventually be hacked. So what will the outcome be? We will peel back the layers of Bitcoin's security design from the perspective of how to kill it.
Method one to kill Bitcoin
Direct hacker attacks. Difficulty Index: Five stars.
No, it's virtually impossible
We can think of Bitcoin as a globally shared ledger system. If a hacker wants to cause trouble, they must accomplish three things: First, secretly write in fraudulent transactions. For example, Zhang San transfers me 1 million Bitcoins. Second, make all global nodes believe this is true. Third, continue to record on this fake ledger without being kicked out.
It sounds a bit like secretly altering accounts in a bank, but in reality, verifying whether a transaction is fraudulent only takes a few seconds, like scanning a bill to verify its authenticity. However, faking a transaction requires millions in equipment and exorbitant electricity costs for camouflage. Moreover, there are thousands of verifiers, also known as nodes, globally. They monitor the system daily, hoping it doesn't make any errors.
To put it simply: it's like trying to secretly tamper with the accounts in a company with ten thousand accountants, all of whom are watching you. The cost of fraud is higher than the company's annual profit. So theoretically, it can be done, but economically, it's completely unfeasible.
Method two to kill Bitcoin
51% attack Difficulty Index: Four stars
Theoretically feasible, but in reality, almost no one can do it.
What is a 51% attack? Imagine the Bitcoin network as a huge voting system. Each miner’s voting weight depends on their computing power, which is the computing capability of their computers. If a bad actor controls over 50% of the global computing power, they can manipulate the voting results.
For example: Bad guy Xiao Wang has one Bitcoin, and he uses this Bitcoin to buy a computer worth ten thousand yuan. The transaction is completed, and the seller sees the Bitcoin has arrived and ships the item, but at the same time, Xiao Wang secretly activates a second hidden chain. On this chain, he transfers that Bitcoin back to himself. If Xiao Wang has sufficient computing power, he can make this fake chain catch up and even surpass the original ledger, and the entire network will believe that this fake chain is real. The original transaction would then be erased, and Xiao Wang ends up with the laptop and his money returned.
A real-life example: In 2013, a website called Bitcoin DICE fell victim to this kind of attack. They lost 1,000 Bitcoins, which were worth about $100,000 at the time, but this happened because they were too impatient. They did not wait for confirmation and assumed the money had been received. It’s like someone pays them, but they didn’t verify the authenticity with a cashier machine before confirming.
So why are such attacks almost never carried out in reality?
There are several reasons: The first reason is that confirmation can prevent it; as long as you can wait for six block confirmations. The attacker would have to catch up to the length of these six ledgers, which increases the difficulty exponentially. It’s like trying to pass counterfeit money through six different bank cashiers, which is almost impossible. The second reason is that to carry out a 51% attack, you would need to invest heavily in buying mining machines, costing billions of dollars. But once you succeed in the attack, Bitcoin's credibility collapses and its price plummets. The mining machines you hold instantly become worthless. It’s like you’re a gold mine owner, but to steal a piece of gold, you blow up the entire mine. Can the government do this? You might wonder if the state can intervene, but the problem is that miners are distributed all over the world. The more mining machines you buy, the more expensive they become, and the overall computing power of the network gets even stronger as a result. It’s like trying to buy all the taxis to paralyze the city's traffic, only to end up igniting the entire taxi industry.
Method three to kill Bitcoin
Hardware backdoors. Difficulty Index: Three stars
Some feasibility
It’s like you buy a computer that seems normal on the surface, but inside hides a remote control that someone else can use to operate it from afar; that’s a hardware backdoor.
In the Bitcoin system, there are two possible attack scenarios. Scenario one: controlling mining machines. Most mining machines are produced by a few companies. If these manufacturers are controlled by hackers or the government, they could potentially shut down the machines at critical moments or even initiate a 51% attack. It’s like all the banks in the world using the same safe; if something happens to that company, all banks would be at risk. Scenario two: hackers stealing users' private keys. Hackers install spyware on your phone or computer, secretly obtain your wallet’s private key, and directly transfer your coins away. This type of attack doesn’t need to affect everyone; just a few cases are enough to cause widespread panic. Therefore, the Bitcoin community's deep-rooted belief is to not trust self-verification. Many Bitcoin geeks personally check the code, verify hardware, and set up their own nodes. This is one of the important reasons Bitcoin has remained resilient.
Method four to kill Bitcoin
Shutting down the entire internet Difficulty Index: Five stars
Practically impossible
Many people think that as long as the internet is shut down, Bitcoin will be finished, but the reality is the opposite. Bitcoin is an extremely resilient system with very low data requirements; it only needs to transmit one megabyte of data every ten minutes, which is roughly the size of a photo. It consumes less data than watching a short video, and its transmission methods are not limited to the internet. Bitcoin data can even be transmitted via satellite, radio, simple networks, or even carrier pigeons. As long as there are two computers in the world that can communicate with each other, the Bitcoin network can continue to operate. To give a very extreme example: even if a nuclear war breaks out and only a few computers remain, Bitcoin can still survive. But if you really shut down the global network, Bitcoin would indeed be gone. Banks, hospitals, transportation, and power grids would all collapse, so this is the most unrealistic and exaggerated method of killing Bitcoin.
Attack method five
Rising node costs Difficulty Index: Three stars
Medium to long-term potential threats
What is a Bitcoin node? Bitcoin is a globally shared ledger system, and each node acts like an independent cashier and accountant. They are responsible for maintaining a complete ledger and verifying the authenticity of each transaction. The logic of the attack is as follows: if the cost of cashiers becomes increasingly high, many people may opt out, leaving only a few individuals in control of the ledger. At that point, they could collude to commit fraud and alter historical records, which would undermine the decentralized nature of the system. However, in reality, currently running a full node requires only a regular computer and typical bandwidth. Moreover, Bitcoin intentionally limits each block to one megabyte in order to control costs and allow more people to participate. As long as ordinary people can participate in verification, the system is truly secure.
To put it in a more intuitive way: imagine a fair lottery system where originally a thousand people could supervise the lottery, and everyone trusted it. Later, as costs rose, fewer people participated, leaving only five individuals to supervise the draw. Who could still believe that this lottery was fair? Currently, the total number of global full Bitcoin nodes, including private nodes, is estimated to be about 50,000. Even if some people withdraw, Bitcoin remains one of the most widely distributed and hardest to manipulate networks in the world. So the real way to kill it is not through technology but on the day when ordinary people no longer want to participate in this system.
Method six to kill Bitcoin
Breaking the SHA-256 algorithm Difficulty Index: Four stars
There are also potential threats in the future
What is SHA-256? You can think of SHA-256 as a super shredder that takes any data you throw in and produces a fixed-length shred of paper. The same data will produce the same shred each time, but you cannot reverse the shred back into the original document. This shred is like a fingerprint of the document, and every transaction and address in Bitcoin relies on this fingerprint to ensure its security.
What would happen if SHA-256 were compromised? Imagine a future where quantum computers really exist, capable of reversing a shredder and deducing original content from shredded paper. It’s like a hacker only seeing your fingerprint can deduce your entire hand, and even replicate your palm to open doors. Hackers could potentially deduce information from Bitcoin addresses, putting all your wallets at risk of theft, and the entire system would lose its security guarantees.
So what is the counter-strategy?
Upgrade to a stronger shredder. A new hashing algorithm; one good piece of news is that the SHA-256 algorithm is expected to remain safe for several decades, providing enough time to prepare countermeasures.
Method seven to kill Bitcoin
Return to sound currency Difficulty Index: Two stars
The most realistic but least likely threat
Its threat logic is this: the best way to kill a technology is not to ban it but to invent a better alternative. For example, personal computers replaced typewriters, smartphones replaced traditional cameras, and Nokia’s mobile email replaced fax machines. So you don’t have to hack or blow it up; just make the world too good. No inflation, free remittances, the government doesn’t print money, and gold returns to its monetary standard. Bitcoin’s meaning would then be gone. The deadliest threat is not an attack but when people no longer need it; however, is this utopia realistic? Thus, killing Bitcoin is like killing an idea. As long as there are people needing freedom and an anti-inflation property-holding tool, it will not die.
Perhaps you don’t like it, but you must understand why it is still alive today. Through today’s analysis, we can draw several important conclusions: technological attacks are mostly difficult to implement, either because they are prohibitively expensive or they undermine your own interests. The biggest threat comes from the economic level; if no one needs it, it will naturally be forgotten. The resilience of Bitcoin is beyond imagination, and its globally distributed architecture makes it nearly impossible to completely destroy.
The final answer: Bitcoin is virtually impossible to kill. But if the world becomes perfect, with no inflation, no capital controls, and no financial scrutiny, maybe it will gradually lose its reason for existence. But as long as there is a little bit of unfreedom in this world, Bitcoin will still have a reason to survive. I hope this article helps you.
